The Bomb that Wiped Out the Sky
by TurtleTracer
Summary: Rose Quartz has been through war and betrayal, yet nothing has ever horrified her more than the sight of a bright glowing diamond in the sky.


_**Spoilers, only read if you are up to date with the series. This is my take on a scene in Steven Universe that we are never shown directly. It's a scene that I have been thinking about for awhile. I hope you enjoy!**_

 **The Bomb that Wiped Out the Sky**

I know exactly what part of Earth tipped the scales, made me want to rebel. It wasn't prancing through the flowers, or petting the fish in the streams. Oh those are beautiful irreplaceable parts of Earth, but the Gems had personality, the creation of more Gems seemed almost worth the animals and flowers. After all a flower can't say hi, so isn't it worth killing a few plants for something that does? No, it was the humans. The humans who hugged the smaller ones, and kissed their mates. They would do incredible, gorgeous things. Things that Gems didn't do. Humans were worth a million flowers.

And that made them better, made humans worth at least five Gems per one human. I know because so far that's how many I have sacrificed for one. Other Gems didn't understand the human's freedom, even Pearl didn't understand. For after we obtained our own freedom away from the Diamond's rules, she still chose to play the part that she was created for, to serve me. Even the few other initial Gems I had recruited to my cause in those early days, all continued to do the job that they were created to do, only now they did it differently, for me. Perhaps those little bits of uniqueness should have been what fueled me, what made me believe my rebellion was worth it for all who joined, but it was hard not to see it as nothing changing for them. My soldiers didn't see it, and I did. It must've been because I was a Diamond, that's why I was able to see through the diaphanousness fabric of our corrupted Home World system, and protect a form of life that had obtained a way of existing with perfect purposelessness, and perfect specialness. That's why only I could truly change.

But I was wrong.

Garnet showed me. The feelings of two Gems coming together and going against everything that they were created to do. She was the perfect mix of love and choice that held every reason for hope that I had always wanted for my own species, but more important than this, she showed me that Pearl understood. Because Pearl wanted to fuse, just like Garnet! She wanted to change, too experience life. All of my soldiers did. After Garnet I began to love all my Gems, in a way their pink diamond never did, but always should have.

It was thanks to Garnet, thanks to Pearl. Thanks to….

But one of them isn't here. I could feel the heat of the light as it grew above me. I felt the tips of my form wiz and shake. The all destroying light waving in the sky was already interfering with my original form.

And she isn't here.

I run passed my Gems, pushing my way through the crowds of manifested light as if that's all they were, as if they weren't precious. They call out to me as I move through them.

"Ros-"

"Hey Quartz-"

"What's the hurry?

"Rose slow do-"

I elbow Nephrite away, a warrior who has proven herself to be my first choice for defense against fused Ruby guards. My arm brushes against Little Larimar, a type of silicate material who had only been made a year ago. I jump over Carl, the Carnelian who used to sing me into human sleep in those early rebel years.

Tears shift through my eyes, for they'd know. In their last moments they'd know they weren't good enough for me to stop. Because they aren't. I could save more of them if I stayed here and started grabbing all the Gems that were closest. But then I'd lose-

" _Whoooah_ Rose what's going on? I can walk," Pearl protests from her place trapped firmly under one of my arms. Her eyes are spinning in her head. I knew that it was dizzying for Pearl when I was at my fastest. It made her natural Pearl navigation setup spin.

I ignored her, there was no time. I had a goal.

The light above had grown, it's white size and shape now clearly reveal the dreaded shape of a diamond, and the Gems around me are starting to notice, starting to catch on. One fell before me as the shape of her leg shifts and droops, deformed by light. I jump over her, and everyone began to scream.

In an odd numbness I lift my feet and float forward, the world around me becomes a blur of faces and shining stones as my levitation pushes me faster.

These Gems, they need me. No, I have chosen. Again I'm the one that is given the choice to balance out the importance of a life, and through action become the judge. It's so, so…. _Human_. Nothing about me has ever been so human! It's so selfish, and beautiful, and human!

The constant small stream of tears coming out of my eyes stop and a wide smile of insane euphoria splits my face. I know this because I show all of my teeth. I know this because I'm clenching my jaw down so tight it itches.

It's ok though, everything is ok because I see her. A single black haired purple figure standing alone upon a hilltop. Garnet has her back to me and her eyes trained on the white light above her, one of her shapely hips are cocked to the side, and both her arms are wrapped around her. Not crossed over her chest, but actually wrapped around her body with her hands about the tops of her hips. It looks unnatural, ridiculous, and for all that is Earth and good why was she alone? A jolt of anger hits through my heart. If she wasn't alone than I could save even more, I could grab more.

My eyes widen in understanding. Garnet does everything for a reason, even if it doesn't seem like it. Years of social misunderstandings and study of this fusion has taught me this much. Garnet must have seen this as a possibility, and she must have seen a future of me forgoing her to gather those around me. As long as she stayed on that hill and made it inconvenient, more would live.

The light above us blocks out the light blue of the sky. I begin to feel tugs on the back of my gown as I levitate past frightened bodies, then there are more pulls to my hair. Bits of pink strands are pulled away by desperate palms. The weakened state of my own light form allowing this to happen. The blurred shapes around me are still full of gleaming gems, but no longer is it filled with an equal number of faces. The once faces now faceless, were melting, or changing.

Pearl gasps under my arm, her hands reaching for her mouth as she puts the facts together and sees our doom. She understands.

I break away from my crowd of Gems, from the Gems who gave up everything for me. At the base of Garnet's hill I pound my heel into the ground, launching myself at my purple fusion of hope. Garnet turns about, her mouth open in surprised shock. Oh my Garnet, someday she's going to learn that this world is full of too many beautiful humans for that future vision of hers to always work. The light was blinding behind her square poof of hair, as it now took over the trees in the backdrop. Pearl screams, gripping my dress.

"Ro-"

I grab Garnet by the waist, stopping her from speaking. She has no need to. Her legs curl up under her in a gut reaction to allow me to pick her up. I grip Garnet to me. I grip Pearl harder, pushing her pointed nose awkwardly into my breasts. My shield goes up. We hear and see the others cry out around us through a tinted haze of Pink. Then there's nothing but white light beyond my Rose Shield. The two in my arms keep hugging my body, but now they are also looking out. Hearing the continual guttural screams of the melted, and the whiteness of nothing.

It never ends, for too long everything is white. By the time it's over Pearl's nails have broken through the light fixture that makes up my disguised skin, and Garnet has dematerialized her glasses to better see the carnage around her.

The new world I now look out upon is both worse and better than I expected it to be. The grass is still green. The trees are still filled with leaves. The beauty is still here.

But the Gems around us are horrid broken masses of disfigured light and teeth. One Gem wraps her warped form around the bark of an unmarked tree like a snake. Two others now have four legs, no eyes, and a face full of mouth. Pearl gives a little _eep_ as one slaps itself grossly against my shield. The thing moans pitifully from somewhere in that mass of fleshy Gem, a mass that has a sky-bluish and black stone adorning its mushy scalp, a mass that used to be Little Larimar. Garnet sniffs and begins to cry quietly, but still she stares. Pearl buries herself into my side. I feel the soft strands of her hair tickling my armpit, I pat her absentmindedly.

This is horrible, it is but… I did it. I look down at Pearl and know that she won't blame me for this, she'll think of it as a decision, something that she was proud of me for making. And she'll feel loved, because I picked her. I pull Garnet closer on my other side and allow her to wrap her arms further around me, but she never turns her head away from the ones who didn't make it, and I know what she's thinking. She's thinking that everyone out there is suffering, yet she was spared. If this is to be the case, than the least that she can do is be brave enough to witness their pain. Her thoughts are as outwardly, as Pearl and mine are in.

The deformed Gems around us start to cluster around the shield, banging random body parts against my pink protection with painful abandon.

I bite my lip. It is time to go.

"C'mon," I say, "We have a lot of work to do." I hug Garnet and Pearl closer as I stand to jump. I let myself cry while I flee. I don't want to cry yet. I'm not feeling the loss, not as deeply as I will later. But I cry anyways, because I know that it is expected of me, that it will make Garnet and Pearl feel better, to know that I grieve. And I do, I oh so do, so much. I'm starting to feel the beginnings of the sadness that will always be there, the pounding of loss, but no, there is no regret.

Because I made a choice, a human choice fit for the human planet, of Earth.


End file.
